Seattle Tilth is a fantastic organization that focuses on providing educational resources in organic, sustainable gardening practices to the community. Everything from their composting and city chicken programs to their spring edible plant sale brings our community together and helps build better gardens and gardeners all over Seattle.
Later this month, on November 12th to be [...]

I often talk about foraging my way through my local farmer’s market and around my neighborhood during harvest time. It’s not true foraging like the folks at Foraged and Found do. They really get out in the woods and find wild treasures. When I’m “foraging” at the farmer’s market, I make sure to stop by [...]

I planted one last clove of garlic today. I was rummaging through my eating garlic drawer and happened upon a last clove of elephant garlic a friend had given me from her garden this summer. Is it organic? I dunno. Will it produce here? Again, dunno.
But, I had one last large-ish container filled with potting [...]

Over the weekend, the NY Times published an open letter to the Presidential candidates by Michael Pollan on the issue of feeding the nation. In it, he illustrates that food is a national security, health care, energy and climate change issue.  He tells us that food production is the #2 consumer of petroleum in the U.S. — [...]

Fall is definitely here. My neighbor’s northfacing rooftop is covered with a light frost this morning, and there’s a moist chill in the air despite the crisp sunshine brightening the abundant autumn golds and reds. The race is now on to get the last of the summer veggies out of the garden and into storage [...]

Here in western Washington, the season has definitely taken a turn to autumn. Trees are showing brilliant colors. Wind storms are kicking up (and kicking trees over). Fog is settling in. Rain is falling and so are temperatures. As this happens, summer heat-loving food crops begin to wane.
Heat-lovers like tomatoes are about at their end. [...]

I plugged in the food dehydrator later in the day, and it started up again. Thank goodness! Now all the tomatoes are done drying, and I am contemplating buying another batch to dry today. A good 15 lbs of tomatoes dried down to about a paper lunch sack full. It seems like such a waste, [...]

I just checked my tomatoes and found my dehydrator had stopped running. Maybe 17 hours straight is just too long for these machines, but many juicy items require a lot of time to finish drying. Alas, perhaps when it cools down, it will work again, but I have my suspicions that it is finished. Fortunately, [...]

You know the tune. And, if you’re putting up fresh summer vegetables to enjoy over the winter, you may be singing a similar tune. I really did end up preserving close to one hundred pounds of tomatoes, or at least that’s what I bought with the intention of preserving them. We ate quite a few [...]

Even my regular farmer at the farmer’s market asked on Sunday, “What are you doing with all the food you’re buying?”
“Putting it up for winter, of course.”
I know that the time invested over the last few weeks harvesting corn, basil, tomatoes and other things I’ve grown and preparing them for the freezer will reward me [...]